


Flood

by lynndyre



Category: The Three Musketeers (2011)
Genre: Fever, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-01-27 21:55:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1723769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynndyre/pseuds/lynndyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aramis has a fever, and Athos is adding 'friendship' back to the list of things he believes in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flood

**Author's Note:**

> _If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also._  
>  -Kahlil Gibran, 'On Friendship'

Athos woke to Planchet shaking him with little anxious jerks that threatened to tip hot candle wax on his head.

“Please, sir, it’s Mister Aramis, will you come?”

“What?” Athos rolled out of bed and Planchet flapped uncertainly as Athos strode past him. 

Aramis was sitting halfway down the staircase, barefoot and in his shirtsleeves, and looking as though he’d come down the steps on his arse instead of his legs. Athos dropped down to kneel beside him.

“What’ve you done to yourself?”

Aramis’ hand was wound tight around his crucifix, and it was a moment before he focused, sardonically, on Athos’ face.

“I’m certain I told Planchet to go away, not to wake you.”

“Not the best with orders, Planchet.”

“I slipped, I’ll be alright in a moment. It’s nothing but a few bruises.”

But it had been enough to wake Planchet, and Aramis still hadn’t moved. A fall, unexpected and while half-asleep, might shake a man, but not one who could leap free-falling from the roof of a building into the canals of Venice without even raising his blood. Aramis did not simply trip in the dark.

...nor had he. A few steps down, the tallow candle had thankfully put itself out when it fell, instead of burning the house down around them.

Athos clasped Aramis’ shoulder, and felt the heat rising through the thin cloth. “You’re warm.” He reached out to Aramis’ forehead, caught Aramis’ wrist with his free hand when Aramis made to bat him away.

“I know that. I’ve a fever. It’s been coming on all day.”

Athos frowned. 

Aramis rolled tired eyes at him. “Honestly, my friend, go back to sleep.”

Athos huffed out a sigh. “Come on. Up.” He hauled Aramis to his feet, and then had to catch him about the waist as Aramis stumbled, dizzy.

“Oof.”

“Are you alright, sirs?” Planchet hovered inquiringly at the head of the stairwell.

“Oh, make him go away.” Aramis buried the sulking groan in Athos’ shoulder as he righted himself, and Athos snorted. 

“Stoke up Aramis’ fire, Planchet, and then go warm us some wine.” He kept an arm around Aramis’ back as they reascended the stairs.

Planchet bustled, fussed, and vanished, and Aramis sank down onto his bed, slumping back against the headboard. With better light his pallor was hard to miss, and there was a high flush in his cheeks. 

“Not your most graceful exploit.”

Aramis flung one arm over his eyes, and made an irritated noise from beneath it. Athos sat at the edge of the mattress, and leaned over to work a hand between Aramis’ face and arm, smoothing the hair back from his forehead, and feeling its unhealthy heat. After a moment Aramis relented, and leaned his face into Athos’ hand.

Athos’ thumb traced the vulnerable indentation of Aramis’ temple, and the moment strung out in the quiet way of moments in the small hours.

Planchet clattered noisily in the corridor, and Athos drew his hand away.

“Watered down, and honeyed for you, sir. Even with a bit of lemon.” 

“Thank you, Planchet.”

“You’re welcome, sir! And can I say-“

Athos met Aramis’ eyes. Both spoke together. “Go away, Planchet.”

“Yes sirs.”

Aramis sipped, and his colour grew more even. “Are you staying the night?

“I’m awake now. Trying to sleep again after Planchet’s shaking would only give me an ache in my neck.” He set his cup aside, and fingered the pages of the pamphlet at Aramis’ bedside. “I’ll stay unless you’d like me to go.”

Aramis looked at him, head tilted, eyebrow raised, as if Athos were a puzzle he was trying to solve.

“ ‘Human contact helps to regulate the humours.’ That’s what you told me, when you and Porthos bracketed me between you for weeks after La Rochelle. I didn’t believe you. But the contact was welcome.”

“As it is welcome now. But you surprise me. You haven’t ...”

“Been much use as a friend.”

“Been desirous of company.” Aramis’ glare, when upside down and delivered from his pillow, did something strange inside Athos’ chest. He traced the furrow between Aramis’ eyebrows with his thumb, and laid his palm on Aramis’ hot cheek.

“It’s ...gotten better.” Surprisingly so. Even the air tasted clearer, in recent days.

A shiver ran through Aramis’ body, and he curled with it, into the pillow, and closer against Athos’ leg and hip. “We’re all of us better men, given a purpose once more. We were never made for inaction.” He smirked. “And it’s good to see your satisfied squirrel face again. We missed that one.”

Athos blinked. “What?”

“When you smile, properly, your cheeks go all round. Just here.” He prodded Athos’ face. “Like a squirrel with a mouthful of nuts.” 

“I do not.” Athos’ mouth twitched.

“Ask Porthos.”

“Interrupt his night with his mistress to ask if I look like a rodent.” Whatever his smile might look like, it was enough to send Aramis into muffled, coughing laughter. Athos let the smile remain, and refilled Aramis’ cup.

“Here. Drink, and sleep. The fire’s enough to read by, for a little while.”

Aramis reached across, and handed him a thin book in fawn leather binding. “Poetry, not theology. Read it aloud, if you would.” 

“Eyes bothering you?”

“And my head, and every other part of me.” 

Athos found his willingness to complain perversely reassuring. He urged Aramis back down, and watched him struggle to shove his hair back out of his face. It was just long enough to be a nuisance, and just too short to actually stay behind his ears. Athos slid a hand into it, and scratched lightly at Aramis’ scalp. The feeling in his chest swelled, warm and thick with caring, spiked with hot, sweet, indulgent ...something else.

Life was too damn short and too damn long to spend alone. But Athos hadn’t been. They hadn’t ever let him.

He found the page Aramis had marked with a strip of cord, and began to read.


End file.
